SEO / SEM Blog by Search Circus

We’ve written about this before, but we do believe repetition is good for some topics especially when books have been published to convince companies the power of Twitter and other buzz marketing methods.

10 Reasons to use Twitter as Buzz Marketing

1. Communication – With instant news feeds and friend updates, it is easier than reading the daily newspaper. Many cell phones now have Twitter applications where you can receive minute by minute updates for search terms or about you company (or your competitor!)

2. Brand Recognition – The easier you make it for your clients and customers to remember what you do through your username and logo, the better for attracting business with Twitter buzz marketing. Add hashtags (#) if you want to emphasize a word or phrase and conduct searches for it later on search.twitter.com.

3. Reputation Management – Micro blogging and buzz marketing for business is powerful and companies are now recognizing the power of Twitter. with buzz marketing, you want to engage your followers with real conversations to build your reputation online. There are, of course, “reputation management” companies, but why pay for something when you can do it yourself for free?

4. Build Your Network – Similar to other social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook), you want to build your following to strengthen connections, create new ones, and provide informative missives for your followers. @CoachDeb and @WarrenWhitlock were able to do just that once they connected on Twitter to write Twitter Revolution (Xeno Press 2008).

5. Attract New Clients – Company must change their mindsets about buzz marketing, it’s not about “getting” clients, it’s more about the subtle attraction than chasing or making those uninviting cold sales calls. Twitter allows you to unfollow or even block followers, if you feel they will spam your tweet stream or only provide sales messages (companies shouldn’t just tweet sales messages, be human).

6. Find and Connect with Influencers – Unlike wordy and endless emails, Twitter’s buzz marketing makes it easy to connect and stay in touch with people with the 140 characters or less limit. Meet people at a seminar or conference, get their Twitter name and connect throughout the year without being too pushy.

7. Search Engine Optimization (This is our favorite!) – “Twitter is one of the top SEO tools online.” The team at Search Circus already realizes the enormous impact that buzz marketing has on the industry as well as every other business online. If you want to be found online, Twitter can easily accomplish this goal, and be an ever important marketing method to promote your Website, blog and job opportunities. Each time you post you tweet, it will be indexed in the search engines (unless you lock down your tweets), so ensure you use the appropriate buzz words you want people to recognize your company.

8. Trend Spotting – When you want to know what is going on in the Twitter-verse, there are several applications and methods to keep abreast of trendy topics. Try TweetScan.com or TwitScoop or look at the homepage of Twitter to get the most updated topics of the hour. You can even do a search for a buzz word or phrase and save the search for later.

9. Focus Groups – Before Twitter there were focus groups to conduct research on a company’s products or services based on a specified budget. However, Twitter has made this expensive research nearly extinct. Now businesses can receive immediate feedback by conducting their own research by simply starting a tweet with POLL in front of it. The more followers you have, the more responses you are likely to receive.

10. Enhanced Conference Experience – One of the more powerful buzz marketing capabilities of Twitter is the conference connection. When we attended the PodCamp Ohio un-conference in June 2009, we were constantly reminded to use the hashtag #pco09 whenever we tweeted so that all the comments and conversations could easily be searched. Likewise, if you are hosting an event or sponsoring an event, create some buzz marketing with an easy to remember and appropriate hashtag for attendees by including the last two digits of the year of the event.

Find more social media and buzz marketing tools for business in Twitter Revolution by Deborah Micek and Warren Whitlock, 2008. Follow @SearchCircus for SEO tips, news and updates.